Former three-weight world champion Koki Kameda officially opened a boxing gym called 3150 (Saiko) Fight Club in Osaka’s Nishinari Ward, western Japan, on March 1, the 34-year-old Kameda said at the day’s press conference.

According to Kameda, the eldest of the so-called ‘’three Kameda brothers,’’ along with Daiki, 32, and Tomoki, 29, the gym has joined the West Japan Boxing Association. Koki said, ‘’We will nurture young boxers. Boxing has made me what I am today. True there are not many events now due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, but we will do our best to promote boxing events so that they can earn enough purse.’’

‘’This is repayment of a favor of turtles (which is a takeoff on the Japanese traditional legend meaning ‘’the gratitude of the crane.’’). I hope I can return the favor to the Japanese boxing world in my own way,’’ he added.

The gym is on the eighth floor of a building used by Kameda’s father Shiro, 55, as an amateur boxing club. Tomoki, a former world bantamweight champion and world super bantamweight interim champion known as ‘’El Mexicanito,’’ will belong to the gym.

Koki said, ‘’Tomoki, who had lived in Mexico for a long time and did not have a gym to turn to in Japan right now, is still 29-years-old and can therefore aim at a world title from now on. I hope he will become a world champion again after a nontitle match.’’ Koki quoted Tomoki as saying, ‘’Thank you my brother.’’
Also, three amateur boxers who had trained at the gym will shortly take tests to become professional boxers.

Koki, a father of four children, said he will live in Tokyo so that he can obtain boxing promoter’s license and hopes to use live streaming of boxing events, for example. The 37-year-old Yuki Takemoto, a former Green-Tsuda Boxing Gym professional boxer, and a few others are expected to serve as trainers.

Koki hopes to stage a boxing event about once a month, saying, ‘’I became a world champion as a boxer and hope to become the world foremost promoter this time.’’